Posted on 01/31/2003 9:45:18 PM PST by WSGilcrest
ASTRONOMY/SPACE ALERT FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Brian Webb, KD6NRP Ventura County, California E-mail: kd6nrp@earthlink.net Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp
2003 January 30 (Thursday) 20:00 PST ----------------------------------------------------------------------
SPACE SHUTTLE REENTRY VISIBLE
The Space Shuttle Columbia is set to land this Saturday morning at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Prior to landing, the spacecraft will reenter the Earth's atmosphere and become an artificial meteor.
During reentry, Columbia's groundtrack will pass north of San Francisco at 05:53 PST and continue east. The Shuttle will then pass immediately south of Lake Tahoe and cross southern Utah.
Because the Shuttle will cross northern California before sunrise and be at an extremely high altitude (above 220,000 feet), the reentry should be visible over a wide area. The event will theoretically be visible up to 575 miles north and south of the track. However, at this distance, the vehicle will attain a maximum elevation of 0 degrees.
In reality, the maximum distance the reentry will be visible is probably about 431 miles north or south of the groundtrack. This means observers across all of southern California have a chance to see it.
If you live in southern California and would like to see the reentry, my advice is to go to a very dark site with an unobstructed northern horizon. Then scan the horizon from the northwest to the northeast from 5:48 to 5:58 a.m.
For the best view, go north and try to get a close to the groundtrack as possible. Rick Baldridge has a map of the track and a plot of the spacecraft altitude versus distance-to-touchdown posted on the Web at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/rickbaldridge
Go to the area titled "Astronomy Stuff" and look for the files "__hr_Shuttle Reentry over Bay Area" and "__hr_STS Reentry Dist vs Altitude".
Regardless of where you observe the event from, try to bring along an observing partner. Locating a fleeting manmade meteor is a lot easier if you have another set of eyes scanning the sky.
Current Space Shuttle mission status is available at:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/status.html
If any of you end up seeing Saturday morning's reentry, please let me know.
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Here are a few sources of information for Saturday's Space Shuttle reentry.
The groundtrack for the reentry is available at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/groundtracs
A NASA web site can calculate the altitude and azimuth of reentry and create a sky map. Go to:
http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/ SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html
Select "KSC255" and enter your location.
Note: Be sure to enter the above address in your browser as one continuous line without any breaks or spaces.
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To subscribe or unsubscribe from this newsletter, go to:
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Questions and comments regarding this newsletter and editorial contributions should be directed to kd6nrp@earthlink.net
I used to live on the west coast of Florida. From my front yard, I could watch the launches (until the booster rockets fell off). I, also, saw it the first time it landed at the Cape. It was very high, and going extremely fast...the sonic boom was the icing on the cake!
I saw this thread just as I was about to go to bed, so I just had to peek.;o)
I hope you get to see it.
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